Library Planning
There are many different ways to present and learn from your community, and it is important to consider the audience and the goals of the library planning project when choosing a style. Some common community engagement workshops include library consultant lectures, demonstrations, panel discussions, and community planning workshops workshops.
A library consultant webinar is a formal online presentation given by our library consultant to an audience, typically with the goal of educating or informing the audience about library planning trends, spaces, technologies and operations topics.
A library planning demonstration is a practical presentation that shows how the future library space plan works. It also helps us show how the long and short term opportunities, often involving input from the community, library staff and leadership experience or examples. See Special Library Collections Return on Investment Discussion.
A library planning panel discussion is a form of presentation in which we help the community gather a group of community experts or specialists discuss library planning topics or issues, often with audience participation and/or questions. This can include discussions about preservation – See NYTimes Article on Protecting Books from Climate Change
A library planning workshop is a structured learning experience that typically involves hands-on programming activities, group discussions, and other interactive elements.
Community Engagement
Our library planning workshops are often focused on a innovation, traditions and architectural topics and are designed to help participants learn and apply programming knowledge and techniques. For example, we may be studying a new building project, preservation or a digital library for a corporate or higher education client.
Each of these library workshops have their own benefits and drawbacks, and the best style for a particular situation will depend on the needs and goals of the library and the data required.
CONTACT LIBRARY CONSULTANT TO BEGIN RESEARCH
Position your Project
It is important to position your planning project within the scope of your community in order to demonstrate the relevance. It is important to set the overall goals and objectives of the library planning project. This can help to ensure that your library planning project is given serious consideration by the leadership, and that they will be of interest to community.
Align your Organization and Mission
One way to position your library planning project within the community is to highlight the ways in which they align with the organization’s mission and objectives. You can also describe the specific ways in which your improvement project contributes to the overall improvement of the community and how they address important issues or challenges related to the research library.
Research Your User
In addition to positioning your library planning project within the community, it can also be helpful to guide library planning workshop attendees to topics of interest during the meetings. This can be done through the use of clear and descriptive trends and benchmarks for your library planning project. We like to use visual aids, such as charts or diagrams, to help community workshop / engagement attendees understand the key points of the library planning project and how they relate to the community.
